Star-Ledger file photoSomerset County Prosecutor Geoffrey Soriano has submitted his Task Force's report on a county-wide police force to the Freeholders. They intend to release the report to the public after it's presented to Somerset municipal officials and chiefs of police during the week of April 9. Star-Ledger file photo.

SOMERVILLE — The long-awaiting and twice-delayed report of a task force studying the feasibility of Somerset County-wide policing is to be made public some time in the next two weeks.

Prosecutor Geoffrey Soriano, who has been leading the work of an 80-member Task Force, handed off the report to the Freeholders last night, March 27, according to County Administrator Michael Amorosa.

The Freeholders will keep the report from the general public until elected officials, municipal business administrators, police chiefs and others can be briefed, Amorosa said today, March 28.

That will likely occur at an “invitation-only” private meeting during the week of April 9, Amorosa said, but the exact date, time and place haven’t been determined. The report is to be made public the same day, he said.

Amorosa said he’s looking for a venue that will accommodate about 200 people so that members of the Task Force can be on hand to answer questions. The report, said to be 3-4 inches thick and 200 pages or more, may be made available on computer disc rather than in paper form, he said, due to its sheer size and the number of people who are to receive it.

The Freeholders last night “got an idea of what the study was all about,” Amorosa said, but will have to wade through the report for the details. Amorosa hadn’t read the report yet, he said.

Soriano’s Task Force was created following a regional policing study commissioned by the Freeholders in 2010. In December of that year, consultant Thomas A. Banker opined that a single county-wide force would enhance service, reduce duplication and save taxpayers about $18 million a year in police and administrative salaries and benefits.

In his report, Banker estimated those costs for the 19 municipal departments around the county to be $104.1 million. The creation of a regional force could reduce that number to $86.3 million, according to Banker. Additional savings would be realized through reductions in facilities, equipment and overhead costs, he told the Freeholders in 2010.

In February of 2011, the Freeholders responded by commissioning a more comprehensive feasibility study and created Soriano's Task Force to conduct it. The report was to be released at the end of 2011, but was delayed after the task proved to be more involved than first thought.

It’s not yet known whether the Task Force has recommended the same structure.

Nor is it known if the Task Force recommends that municipalities be forced to participate or will be able to opt out, or whether there should be incentives to get municipalities to sign on to the plan.

While Banker’s projection of significant savings helped sell the Freeholders — and was the subject of one Task Force subcommittee’s entire focus — it’s really a question that municipal business administrators and mayors will have to judge, Amorosa said.

That’s one reason that municipal officials will get a chance to review the recommendations ahead of the public, Amorosa said.

The consultant was working with older financial data that might no longer be valid, Amorosa said. The Task Force looked at 2011 numbers, he said, which are “more real time.”

Six subcommittees of the Task Force considered a variety of obstacles to regionalization, according to Soriano, including governance structure and municipal contracts; communications and records management; organization structure, crime analysis, scheduling and deployment; standardization of operating procedures; reconfiguration of host facilities, and integration of labor contracts.

“It’s not going to be a broad brush report,” Amorosa observed. “It’s very detailed.”

Still, Amorosa said, what’s of most interest to municipal officials is possible savings to their town budgets.

“Taxpayer dollars,” he said. “That’s what the mayors and business administrators are attuned to.”